You are here

Hate group militias rise after Obama presidency, 4 arrested

If four senior citizens, ages 65-73, had gone on with their terror plot, Atlanta and other cities would have been attacked with lethal ricin. Bombs would have exploded inside federal buildings, law enforcement officials and other figures would be dead.

In 2008, after Barack Obama took office, a right wing group known as the Patriot movement grew phenomenally. The group's growing numbers were a direct response to the election of a black president of the United States.

By 2010, Patriot hate group membership was almost as high as it was in 1996. Since 1995, there have been approximately 100 domestic terrorist plots from the radical right when Timothy McVeigh murdered 168 people in an Oklahoma federal building.

Like McVeigh, the four senior citizens arrested on domestic terror plots in Georgia are members of a militia. The four seniors belonged to an unnamed militia group from North Georgia These four men, Samuel J Crump 68, Frederick Thomas, 73 and the group's leader, Dan Roberts, 67 and Ray H. Adams 65, were secretly taped by a confidential informant. And then turned over to authorities.

The informant's tape revealed that the group's leader, Thomas, felt the country couldn't be saved without "doing something that's highly illegal." The men believed they had to commit murder in order to save the U.S. Constitution.

The plot of the four senior citizens included producing and dispersing ten pounds of deadly ricin powder in several cities. One of the terror plotters wanted to blow the ricin powder from the windows of a car traveling down the interstate. The domestic terror plotters said the ricin could be released from their vehicle without causing self-injury.

One of the other plotters said he'd start shelling castor beans, from which ricin is manufactured. The third plotter said he had a ricin formula and knew how to get the required ingredients.

The informant relayed recorded information of the men plotting to "take out" certain officials, politicians, business leaders and journalists. Their senior terrorists believed that once the people on their hit list were assassinated, then they country could be "made right again." Some of the terror plotters are military veterans who've fought in U.S. wars.

Absolved, an online novel, is believed to be the model for the seniors plotted activity. Absolved is the story of a small group of Americans who attack federal officials. Its author is Alabama native and militia member Mike Vanderboegh. Vanderboegh has been linked to a series of antigovernment Patriot groups in Alabama and its surrounding regions.

Vanderboegh was also an analyst for Fox News earlier in 2011. Vanderboegh criticized the ATF for a "botched investigation of Mexican drug running," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Vanderboegh raised objections and stirred controversy when he incited a call to violence over Obama's health care plan.

Vanderboegh has quickly "absolved" himself of any involvement with the four militia terror plotters.

In other information leaked to law enforcement officials about the four seniors, the group planned a "multi-state" meeting to form a "better united and communicative militia."

Across the country, members of hate groups have increased their political presence after President Obama's election. In Arkansas, a member of a hate group was elected to the state House. The politician has not rescinded his ties with a hate group on the Southern Poverty Law Center's hate group watch list.

Check back for more information on the fate of the terror suspects as it develops.